


Before the Parade Passes By

by bulletproof_lesbians



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Carmilla is a USELESS LESBIAN, Carmilla is me I am Carmilla, Danny and Kirsch are super bros and not dating but yeah, ENJOY THE GAYS, F/F, Fluff, If you are wondering my internal monologue it is carmillas monologue always, Laf is unofficial truth speaker (you'll see later), Laura is an adorable little shit (you'll see later), anyway, basically this is based on me being very gay at disneyland with my friends, disneyland au, everyone is just so gay except for kirsch but like are you surprised, fluffy as all hell, like seriously so much fluff, lots of tags, she says what I want to say
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2018-11-19 12:41:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11313612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bulletproof_lesbians/pseuds/bulletproof_lesbians
Summary: Carmilla Karnstein has never stayed to watch the parades at Disneyland until one night when a certain honey-eyed Tinkerbell catches her eye.A College/Non-Supernatural/Disneyland AU





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! This story is dedicated to my beautiful, wonderful, and talented friend Breannimate on tumblr. 
> 
> It is also dedicated to the woman who played Tinkerbell in the paint the night parade the night my friend made me watch it and then I was slapped in the face with the gay. Oh man.
> 
> Also shoutout to WildWeeb for being my beta reader and dealing with my poor punctuation and grammar I love youuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Carmilla Karnstein would personally admit that she had many regrets in life… but the biggest one she could think of at the present moment was telling Wilson Kirsch that she had an annual pass to Disneyland. The broody philosophy major had let it slip when she was at a Zeta party getting completely wasted but in all honesty NOT having an annual pass at Silas University would have been a weirder situation. Most folks would think Carmilla Karnstein would find Disneyland incredibly annoying and trite, but having grown up in Southern California going with her father and siblings she held an affection for the place. An until very recently **secret** and **personal** affection. And she was not very thrilled at the fact that now instead of going on the sappy Fantastyland rides during the parade (she could not stand the parades… the music was too repetitive and the floats unimpressive. Besides how was she supposed to legitimately wait for 45 minutes to go on Peter Pan? It’s absurd.) she was sitting on the curb saving Kirsch and Danny fucking Lawrence of all people spots to see the parade.

 

_Honestly why do those behemoths need to sit, they can probably just stand in the back and not miss a single thing. Not that I care if they can see their stupid parade anyway._

 

Carmilla took out her phone to check the time again: 7:43 pm. _This stupid electrical parade better be worth it, Beefcake._ She opened the Disneyland app on her phone to check the wait times on the rides she COULD be riding instead of sitting here losing the feeling in her left buttcheeck as an overgrown puppy and his ginger beanstalk “bro” get more food and coffee for the three of them. Carmilla was aching for some coffee to get her through the unbearable light show that she was about to experience for the first time. The old electrical parade from back in the day [1972 to be exact (not that Carmilla knew that or anything…)] was back in town for a probably last time run before being retired permanently and Carmilla had never seen it, which Kirsch found to be the greatest crime anyone could ever commit. When they all were three sheets to the wind at his party last weekend and he mentioned how much he wanted to see the electrical parade again before it goes away for good Carmilla scoffed and said “Please bro-magnon, don’t tell me you actually sit on the curb and watch those fucking parades instead of hitting up the fantasyland rides like a rational human being?” Kirsch turned to Carmilla with the look of someone who had just been told that Santa wasn’t real.

 

“Bro what do you mean? The parades are the best part!”

“... You’re totally fucking with me right?”

“No I would go with my mom all the time growing up. We would like, always watch them together you know? And like, the coordination of the dancers and stuff is really cool. The floats always like look nice too.”

“I can’t handle the music over and over again for 30 minutes while I sit in the sun getting burned when I could just as easily be WALKING ON fucking Dumbo or Mr Toad’s Wild Ride.”

“....Wait do you have a pass Carmsexy?”

“OF COURSE I FUCKING HAVE A PASS!”

“BRO WE ARE GOING AND YOU ARE TOTALLY WATCHING THE PARADE WITH ME!”

“The hell I am.”

“Bro please? Like I’ll totally drive us AND buy all your food when we go.”

“... Are churros included in this deal?”

 

And that’s how she got here, sitting on the curb with officially no feeling in her left buttcheek waiting patiently for Danny and Kirsch to get their asses back onto Main Street so she can drink her coffee and eat her overpriced churro in peace. Well correction: her fifth overpriced churro of the day, and the fifth overpriced churro that she got for free courtesy of the oversized puppy who made her come watch this idiotic display of christmas lights excuse for a parade.

 

Finally her two... friends? Acquaintances? Classmates? People she barely tolerated? Those two giants that existed near her and were going to be sitting next to her for the next twenty minutes showed up with the promised coffee and Carmilla stared at Kirsch. “Beefcake, we had a deal, where’s my churro.”

“Oh, D-bear’s got it for you!”

“Clifford I swear to god get your paws off my sugary deliciousness”

Danny glared at Carmilla and retorted in a mocking tone “‘Oh THANK YOU Danny for putting up with my broody ass and getting me a churro you’re so kind’ ‘Why you’re welcome Carmilla it was an honor’ is that so hard Morticia?”

“Yes it is now hand me my damn churro, Xena.”

 

The unlikely trio waited on the curb for the parade to start, drinking their coffees and eating their churros. Suddenly the lights on main street dimmed and Kirsch started enthusiastically saying “bro. BRO. BRO ITS STARTING!” punctuating each instance of the word “bro” with a slap to Carmilla’s right arm.

 

It was pure torture.

 

Kirsch looked at Carmilla with a look of pure unadulterated joy as a robotic daft punk-esque voice said “Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and girls…”

Carmilla snorted in surprise laughter at the campy introduction. “They can’t be serious what the FUCK is that voice?!” she snarked.

“CARMILLA THERE ARE CHILDREN PRESENT!!!” Danny whisper-yelled over a doofy Wilson Kirsch.

Carmilla looked to her left to see a woman looking mortified at her while covering her seven-year-old’s ears.

“Please he’s probably heard way worse by now in school”

“Hey can you two please shut up the music is about to…. DO DO DOOO DOOO” and Kirsch interrupted himself by singing along to the chipper electronic tune that Carmilla was absolutely certain would be stuck in her head for weeks due to the fact that she would be hearing it for roughly twenty minutes.

“Oh wow it’s only been 45 seconds and I already want to stab my eardrums with a screwdriver. Do you think that this counts as actual physical torture? I’m just wondering if you all will get in trouble with the geneva convention. Wouldn’t want to be the reason you trees get sent to prison.”

Danny finally snapped. “Can you just please shut up for like ten minutes. That’s all I’m asking for. Ten. Minutes. Do it for Kirsch.”

 

Carmilla would never admit it out loud but she was a sucker for puppy dog eyes. She looked to her right to look at the pitiful display of a man next to her. Kirsch looked like a golden retriever who had been kicked to the ground and yelled at.

 

It was too much.

 

She relented.

 

A few floats went by, lights all around with an annoying musical accompaniment that was oddly old fashioned and electronic. It sounded like what a nerd from the early 70s would think would be cool in the “FAR OFF YEAR 2000” where people drove hovercars instead of Priuses. Carmilla suffered through her promised ten minutes of silence (and she would deny with every fiber of her being that she thought the spinning turtles looked kind of cute) when suddenly on the top of an oddly chosen toadstool of all things, a Tinker Bell was perched and waving to the kids. She had a light shining on her face illuminating a radiant smile and Carmilla's heart stopped beating for a moment, then beat way too fast for a few more.

 

_Holy shit. Tinker bell._

 

Carmilla stared at the small girl on the mushroom and eventually they locked eyes. Carmilla gave the pixie a sultry look with a smirk which the fairy countered with a slight blush and wave. It was entirely too adorable for the broody 20 year old to take. The fairy then blew a kiss to the little girls and winked at Carmilla with a small smile. There was something familiar about the small honey blonde that Carmilla just couldn’t quite place… like she’d seen her before but couldn’t tell exactly where. When the parade finally ended only one thought stayed in Carmilla Karnstein’s mind:

 

_Tinker bell has eyes like honey._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla is a useless lesbian, Laf likes fire, and there's some chemistry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy shit sorry I forgot to post this ages ago... and also I would like to say that I am posting this today (unbeta-ed because I am a trash human) because it is the super talented and wonderful BREANNIMATE's birthday! She's my buddy and this story is dedicated to her cause we are LA trash babies who love disneyland.

It had been exactly fifteen days since Carmilla was dragged to that stupid light parade. Fifteen days since Carmilla had seen the cute little Tinkerbell and fifteen days of Carmilla hitting her head into her desk at exactly 7:24 pm every night because if she left at that  **precise** moment she could ride her motorcycle to Disneyland and park in the Downtown Disney lot for free and still make it to see the cute Tinkerbell wave in the parade.

 

She hated that she knew this.

 

She hated that every single day she  **almost** went. 

 

How could she be so smitten with someone she had never spoken to? A complete stranger she had never met and probably never would meet? Why could she not get the stupid adorable toothy grin of the honey-eyed pixie out of her head? Why was she thinking about this girl instead of writing her lab report that was definitely due tomorrow that she hadn’t even remotely started?

 

Knowing that it was sure to be a late night, Carmilla sipped her freshly-made french press coffee (the sumatra blend from starbucks has a panther on it and she honestly cannot resist the packaging) and glanced at the large red analog clock on her wall to see that it was 7:20.

 

She wasn’t going to go to Disneyland to go see that tiny girl for maybe a minute. She wasn’t  **that** desperate… was she?

 

Carmilla’s eyes flicked between the clock and her helmet by the door as the clock kept on ticking closer to that last possible moment before she would miss the fairy entirely. 

 

“Goddamnit.”

 

Carmilla grabbed her helmet leaving her coffee to cool on her desk as she slammed her door shut and ran to her bike. Carmilla’s bike was one of the three things she loved in this world besides her sister and coffee. Bagheera was a schnazzy looking 1959 style black Triumph and when Carmilla sped around boy that engine purred. Well  _ purred _ was being generous. It growled. Well…. It roared. Bagheera was a  **fucking loud** bike.

 

As Carmilla sped out towards her fairy princess, another person heard the bike roar. A certain person who really wanted help with their lab report. A certain person that Carmilla was definitely supposed to meet up with in exactly 7 minutes. That person was Lafontaine and they texted Carmilla the following messages.

 

_ 7:23 pm _

_ Hey dude I just heard Bagheera you DO remember we are writing our lab report at 7:30 right? _

 

_ 7:26 pm _

_ Karnstein? _

 

_ 7:30 pm _

_ Carmilla? _

 

_ 7:45 pm _

_ Carmilla I SWEAR if you’re off getting drunk tonight instead of helping me with this lab report I’m not going to be your lab partner anymore. You can do all the calculations yourself. _

 

_ 7:58 _

_ Listen Broodypants I don’t care if your last girlfriend literally ripped your heart out of your chest and stomped on it I am not going to be alone in this you can seduce impressionable girls on your own time. _

 

_ 8:05 _

_ Ok seriously are you still alive? _

 

Carmilla parked at Downtown Disney, locked her bike, and sprinted to the gate while showing her annual pass to the attendant. As she walked in the freaking ridiculous voice started up about “Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen……” She ran to the bathroom to fix her makeup and helmet hair. Once her bangs were perfectly falling over her eye and taking several deep breaths, Carmilla sauntered out of the bathroom by city hall and wandered to precisely catch the end of the pirate ship with Captain Hook and Peter Pan swordfighting dramatically under the lights. _ Right it was the ship, then Smee chasing after and then… _

 

Somehow Carmilla’s memory of the girl hadn’t done her justice. How was this Tinkerbell even more beautiful in real life than in her daydreams? How much sleep had she lost over this unattainable pixie who was played by a girl who must be somewhere around her age? They locked eyes again and Carmilla did a noncommittal two-fingered wave as the tinkerbell stared and then smiled a big toothy smile at her. Carmilla wanted to live in this moment forever, her dark brown eyes locked with the honey-whiskey-hazel eyes of this adorable girl. 

 

So of course her phone rang.

 

Carmilla looked down to see a photo of her short haired ginger friend with lab goggles flipping off the camera as their name showed on the screen. Carmilla silenced the call to look back up at the Tinkerbell but she had already moved on to look at the other side of the street. 

 

Her phone rang again. This time she reluctantly answered it.

 

“What do you WANT ginger scientist.”

 

“Oh so you’re NOT dead wow thanks for responding to any of my texts about how we were supposed to work on our lab report tonight at 7:30.”

 

Carmilla closed her eyes and sighed. Of course. She had told Lafontaine that the two of them could work together on the lab report because while Laf is one of the smartest people she knew, they also were not the best at putting their ideas on paper. Carmilla, however, ever the english and philosophy major, could throw together a paper last minute and still get an A. This fact infuriated her ginger friend.  _ Is Laf my Best Friend™? Oh gross. Don’t think about that. _

 

“Sorry Laf… I had something I needed to do.”  _ Yes be vague. Don’t let them know where you are or the pathetic reason you are here. _

 

"Carmilla what's that music are you at a bar instead of writing this lab report with me? Not cool Karnstein. Not cool." Laf’s unyielding sarcasm was definitely not appreciated.

 

"No just…. don't worry about it, ok? I'll be right there, Frankenstein"

 

"I swear if you're sleeping with some freshman..." Lafontaine warned.

 

"I'm not having meaningless sex with some 18 year old ok I'm coming over!" Carmilla yelled much louder than anticipated. In her defence, she’d been blocked from seeing the girl she’d been dreaming of for the past two weeks, and was understandably irritable.

 

An offended gasp from Carmilla’s right made her look at the woman from two weeks ago as she covered her child's ears again. Protection from the horrible influence that is Carmilla Karnstein.

 

"You better watch your dirty MOUTH young lady! There are CHILDREN here at Disneyland." She shook her head disapprovingly as Carmilla rolled her eyes and is about to retort when a voice holding back giggles comes through her reciever.

 

"Bad seed are you at Disneyland? Are you serious right now did I hear that right?”

 

Carmilla's heart dropped to her stomach as she turned on her heel and ran to her bike. "Nope Laf you misheard something I'm definitely fucking a girl in a bar club thing uhhh sorry wow service is spotty I'll call you later bye good luck on your report see you tomorrow in lab!"

 

A mortified Carmilla hung up her phone before the snarky ginger could get a word out. She reached her bike and shoved her black helmet onto her head and fired up the engine. 

 

_ Oh boy lab is going to be awkward tomorrow. _

 

  * \-   



 

And so it was.

 

After a long night of coffee, charts, and using other scientific journals to back up her results, Carmilla Karnstein shuffles into her Chemistry lab in a hoodie and her damn leather pants that she MIGHT just MIGHT have worn to bed the night before (if sleeping for around an hour and a half counts as “the night before”). She plops down next to the just-as-sleep-deprived ginger and gives a grunt as a form of greeting and a thermos of hot coffee in front of their face as a peace offering. Laf took the thermos (black, obviously) and stared at Carmilla for a moment before nodding and taking a sip of the coffee. They momentarily forgave their friend for ditching them last night but something still plagued their mind.

 

“Hey so why the hell was Broody McVampire racing to Disneyland at 7:30 on a Wednesday?”

 

Carmilla explicitly ignored her friend and kept writing down notes for their lab today in order to make this whole experience go faster so she could return to her nice, quiet, apartment where she could just be alone and sleep for days until everyone forgot about the fact that she had an annual pass. Maybe even take a couple more years off from school, wait til they all graduate just to save herself from this embarrassment.

 

“No seriously Miss Eyeliner, do you have a pass or something? Otherwise we really have to talk about your financial responsibility. You couldn’t have been there for longer than like… 20 minutes?”

 

Ignoring the problem wasn’t working. 

 

“Karnstein… Did you go for the 8 o’clock parade? Do you have mushy feelings under all of that leather?”

 

Laf wouldn’t stop poking until they got their answers.

 

Carmilla relented. God, she was going to have to work at her perseverance with these annoying people she cared about. Her  _ friends _ .

 

“Yes Laf ok? Yes I have an annual pass. Yes I went to Disneyland. Yes I went to go watch that stupid parade because  **YES** I actually think I’m developing….  _ Feelings _ for one of the cast members.” Carmilla took this moment to grab her safety goggles out of her backpack and brandished them threateningly at her friend, “and if you breathe a word of this to ANYONE, and I truly do mean anyone, and you will be demoted from Ginger One to Ginger  **_THREE_ ** .”

 

Laf stared cross eyed at the goggles being wiggled by their nose when they said “hang on are you counting Perry as two people? I get that she has this weird alter ego when she drinks but I highly doubt that counts as…” and then a moment of clarity on their face. “DANNY????”

 

One of their classmates shushes them as everyone starts to put on the safety gear to then walk into the laboratory part of the classroom now that everyone has been debriefed.

 

Laf continues, slightly disheartened, “I’m sorry Danny Lawrence. You would place Danny fucking Lawrence above ME?! That’s harsh, Karnstein”

 

“So is bringing up my evil Ex when you’re mad at me, Dr Manhattan.”

 

Lafontaine stared Carmilla down with a calculating gaze as they weighed their options. They seemed to have come to an agreement with themselves because they said: 

 

“Alright. I’ll accept the coffee and knowledge of you being a secret sap as your apology if you accept me doing the calculations today and a Perry brownie as mine. Deal?”

 

Carmilla liked how Lafontaine never tried to coddle her. Even after all the bullshit that happened with her ex, the nonbinary ginger was the only one who never treated Carmilla with kid gloves. Laf did whatever they thought was right and saw a logical way of dealing with anything. Carmilla held her hand out for Laf and accepted the conditions of the deal. Then both of the lab partners got out of their seats from the prelab room and put on their coats, safety gloves, and goggles.

 

Laf put their goggles on dramatically and then said with a huge grin, “let’s go blow some shit up, Dracula.”

 

Carmilla smirked as she grabbed both of their notebooks and followed after her friend.  _ All my friends are idiots. _

 

Lafontaine played with the bunsen burner and kept throwing pinches of different powder into the flame causing it to change colors (it was currently a soft blue) as they said “Karnstein, if you aren’t too busy riding Dumbo or whatever a bunch of us are going to the Zeta house tonight for possible shenanigans. You in?”

  
“What do you mean ‘a bunch of us’ you mean Perry and her drunk alter ego? Your hair gel? Who the fuck are you talking about”

 

“I have OTHER FRIENDS you jackass.” They punctuated the statement by throwing some more powder into the burner, turning it a vibrant green.

 

“Yeah sure you do. Name one.” Carmilla turned her back on the burner to stare at her friend.

  
“Laura Hollis. Journalism major. About five feet of pure spunk and sugar.”

 

“Never heard of her. Pretty sure you just made her up because that sounds like a goddamn cartoon character.”

 

“She’s real! I promise. She started at Silas during the first year of your little ‘adventure’. We took a gender studies class together.”

 

A beat.

 

“Gender studies... wait is she family?”

 

Lafontaine sighs “Yes. Yes Laura is gay. NOW will you come?”

 

“I’m sure I won’t be the only one...”

 

“You need to stop thinking with your vagina for two seconds and look at what I’m about to do” They grabbed a little bit of powder from each of the containers and with a wild shit eating grin threw the whole mess into the bunsen burner. The fire had flecks of orange, green, blue, purple, and hot pink. While Carmilla watched the fire in front of her burn different magical colors the actual real Laura Hollis (not a cartoon character) wakes up to a text from Lafontaine.

 

_ 10:54 am _

_ Hey L my jackass friend doesn’t believe you exist so come to the Zeta house tonight and prove her wrong for me. I’ll have Perry make you some double chocolate brownies for your trouble. Also she’s just your type.  _

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Carm's tragic backstory will be revealed all in good time.


End file.
